Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft's Rumored CloudBook Could Be Your Next Cheap Computer (venturebeat.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: In a few weeks, at its education-oriented software and hardware event in New York, Microsoft could unveil a sub-premium laptop -- something more robust than a Surface but not as fancy as a Surface Book. And rather than run good old Windows 10, the new product could run something called Windows 10 Cloud, which reportedly will only be able to run apps that you can find in the Windows Store, unless you change a certain preference in Settings. The idea is that this will keep your device more secure. However, that does mean you won't be able to use certain apps that aren't in the Store -- like Steam -- on a Windows 10 Cloud device, such as the rumored CloudBook. Microsoft is going after Google's Chromebooks that are very popular in the education space -- so much so that they are playing an instrumental role in keeping the entire PC shipments up.
During the Windows RT era, developers of Windows desktop applications wanted to recompile their applications for ARM. Microsoft wouldn't let them, instead requiring them to port the applications to Windows Runtime and distribute them exclusively through Windows Store. Only Microsoft's own applications (File Explorer, Internet Explorer, and Office) could run on the ARM desktop.
Almost any intel chromebook can be wiped and linux can be installed
Until someone else in the household turns it on and presses Space as prompted then Enter as prompted to initiate a factory reset. Installing GNU/Linux on a Chromebook requires putting it in developer mode, and the firmware of a Chromebook in developer mode begs at every power-on to be switched back to "run the Google Chrome web browser and nothing else" mode.